


Parrhesia

by greygerbil



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Canonically Dead Character Lives, Battle Couple, Established FWB relationship, Kidnapping, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21758596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Without Brasidas, the home Alexios won back does not feel complete. When an anonymous letter claims that Brasidas is not yet lost to him, Alexios is ready to do whatever it takes.
Relationships: Alexios/Brasidas (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 144
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Parrhesia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



Alexios had been in Sparta before, but had never paused to take in more than he needed to, seeing only his lost family around the corner of every house. Now, with his parents and sister reunited, even the struggling new brother pulled in, Sparta still felt incomplete, but this time, the missing piece could not be returned by any mortal’s efforts.

It had been Alexios’ vague memories of a lost childhood that had made the city seem fractured before, but he had only met Brasidas in Sparta once. This time, it was the Spartans themselves who called the man to mind so shortly after his loss and Alexios learned about his life here only through his absence. His _syssitios_ mourned his loss with a sacrifice at the temple of Ares, the procession led by grey-haired man with a hard face and quiet demeanour, his old _eromenos_ , who spoke of Brasidas as a bright young soldier with a great future ahead of him. Two friends of his, men Alexios imagined Brasidas might have introduced him to had they ever had time to be here in peace, carried flowers and a sheep to the altar and tried to keep each other smiling with jokes of horse races Brasidas and them had participated in, of nights spent drinking on the western hills overlooking Sparta and watching the sun come up, and days on the sparring grounds. The ephors praised Brasidas when Alexios met them and told them which unlucky battle he’d come from, and so did the kings. Stentor had expressed his regret, briefly speaking of a campaign Brasidas had led which Stentor had taken part in when released fresh out of the _agoge_.

Alexios knew there had to be a hundred soldiers with stories such as this in Sparta, but he did not ask around. They only tore the hole in his own heart wider. What he did feel he had to do was give the sword he had taken from Brasidas’ body – trampled in the battle, almost unrecognisable but for the armour and blood-stained curls of hair, not that Alexios had managed to look at it long – to his daughter.

She greeted him at the door of her house. She had her father’s eyes, and perhaps the round shape of her face and short statue were her mother’s, but since she was fifteen years dead Alexios could not say. With a grave nod, she accepted the sword from Alexios. “Had he returned, I would have told him of his grandchild,” she said, pulling the draped fabric of her robes taut over her round stomach. “But this is how it goes in war. I hear my father fought valiantly before his death.”

Alexios agreed. No one had seen, in the chaos, that it had been Kassandra who had rammed the spear through Brasidas’ shoulder and he didn’t tell. If his daughter had known, would she have raised the sword against him? She was Brasidas’ issue, after all. Why should she not go after Alexios and his family to avenge her own like Alexios had gone after the Cult?

They did say that it was dangerous to ask the gods for favours. Maybe this was the price for the happiness he’d chased with his family and if it was so, then many innocent people were paying Alexios’ debts, Brasidas himself foremost.

Alexios had a very simple word now to put on the feelings for Brasidas which he had carried in his chest for many years. If only it had been so easy to call it love when he could still have done something about it. It had never been the right time, the right place, or so he’d told himself. He’d pretended that men like them wouldn’t ever be together long enough to make such tight bonds feasible while already entangled in them. And Alexios could have stopped chasing now, for a little, and the Spartan kings were in talks with Athenian leadership to put a temporary halt to the bloodshed, meaning Brasidas might have been called back to Sparta. They could have been home together.

It wasn’t really any use thinking about it, though, so Alexios tried not to. There were jobs still for mercenaries even without a war. He paid a young helot woman to ride ahead to the coast and tell Barnabas to get the ship ready to sail.

A day later, the woman returned to his doorstep with a scroll.

“Did the captain give that to you?” Alexios asked, as he took it from her calloused hands.

“No, a man on the way. I don’t know why he knew I would come to you.”

“Thanks for bringing it,” Alexios answered and thought _he watched you_ , frowning at her. It was good luck the girl hadn’t gotten hurt. He pressed another coin in her palm and closed the door on her before he unfurled the scroll. There were only two sentences written in a neat hand.

_General Brasidas is not dead. Come to Krete and face us._

Under them sat a drawing of a location on the island, a broken statue overlooking the seaside.

-

If they really had Brasidas, then they would make some effort to keep him alive, Alexios told himself as he watched the dark shape of Krete growing larger in the dimming evening light. Even though his wounds had been grievous, he might not retrieve a lifeless body in just as bad shape as the one they had presented Alexios with on the battlefield.

Of course, he might find no one at all. His head told him that Brasidas was probably not there. He’d come here on a baseless claim, ready to walk right into a trap. The Cult would know of their close friendship, if only that, and had nothing to lose by trying to lure him in.

There was no other word for what he was doing but foolish, and yet, Alexios had taken greater risks than this on smaller chances. When he had first met his sister, she had seemed more wild animal than human and now she was back in Sparta with their parents. Besides, he owed it to Brasidas and all those he had left behind to follow every hint, considering it was his own sister who had attacked him.

These were good reasons which he truly believed and liked to think of more than the absolute dread that had settled in his bones since the day that he had seen – believed he had seen – Brasidas’ corpse. The truth was that he would have knocked at Hades’ doors to get him back on grounds of nothing but that emptiness and guilt. What did risking another trick of the Cult matter?

“Bring the ship south around the foothills of the mountains and wait for me there. I might be a few hours,” Alexios told Barnabas as he already stood on the railing. He barely waited for Barnabas’ nod before he threw himself into the sea.

When he swam the distance to the shore, the water lukewarm in the sweltering night, he already scanned the coastline for the statue among the shadows of trees. Dancing above him, Ikaros dipped low over the water and then back up towards the stars in the sky. As they came closer to the shore, he lifted himself up towards the forest and then Alexios saw the statue, too, a god or ruler with their head and left arm missing, almost overgrown.

He emerged through reeds into the underbrush, keeping his head down. There was a good chance that guards had been posted to keep watch on the coastline and though he had not brought the Adrestia to the shore and his own figure had hopefully been lost in the waves, they would have taken note of a ship passing by.

He skirted the statue on its right, fighting up through a tangle of thorny branches and windswept trees on all fours. From the top of a precipice, he saw several heavily armed men guarding a cave entrance, their torches shivering in the wind.

They’d either attack on sight or take him deeper into the belly of the mountain, where he would no doubt be left to negotiate with someone while hidden archers pointed at him from every corner or a wall of spears poked at his back. If they did not plan to talk at all, trying to lure them away and take them out one by one would be the best plan of action; but if they wanted to speak, perhaps he could let them lead him further in first and take note of open doors or hidden pathways. If only he knew what their plan was, he could have adjusted his.

The bushes rustled behind him. With his hand on his spear, Alexios turned, but saw only a big rat making its way through the foliage. It looked at him with black eyes for a moment before it disappeared left and seemed to walk straight through the overgrown wall.

Narrowing his eyes at the spot, Alexios reached towards the thick curtain of leaves. Instead of meeting stone as he’d expected, he found himself reaching into air. He pulled the vines apart and caught a glimpse of a small foothold over a wall plunging down into a cavern behind a low opening in the rock. A single lantern down in the cave illuminated haphazardly placed supplies – food, a couple of extra pieces of armour, some blankets rolled up and tied with rope.

If he was going to walk into the trap, he might as well do it from an angle they did not expect. Alexios crawled through the tight passage and dropped down the edge of it, toes scraping along the wall until he had found a small jutting ledge. From there, he easily climbed downwards. Standing at the bottom, the wall looked a good forty feet tall. The opening at the top wasn’t visible even from the entrance of the cave.

Down a small tunnel, a single guard stood with his back to the cavern, tiredly leaning on his spear. Alexios choked him and dragged his unconscious body back into the storage room before he walked on. He didn’t hear footsteps or voices and tried to add as little noise as possible to the hollow silence. There were sparse lanterns strewn along his way. He arrived at two dead ends before he found a path that led onward. This one ended in another larger cave, studded with uneven pillars formed by the stone. Two empty wooden cages stood to his left, one with a dark, red smear on the ground.

Alexios heart beat in his throat and his grip around the broken spear was tight enough that he felt every uneven dip and splinter in the wood. With bated breath and slow steps, he rounded the pillars, surveying the room. Most of it was empty, but at the very back of it sat another wooden cage, almost swallowed by darkness that only receded when a guard carrying a torch walked by. In the fleeting light he saw Brasidas – his hair and beard longer, his face haggard, dressed in a woollen tunic, but unmistakeably him, unlike the corpse Alexios had seen, with its face smashed in and bloodied. Brasidas’ gaze followed the guard, angry and unbroken.

Alexios surged forward behind a stone column when the guard had passed him and grabbed the torch out of his hand before he cracked his skull against the stone so that the clatter of its fall wouldn’t alert anyone further inside the cave.

The man went down with a quiet groan. Alexios spared him another quick glance to check he had really lost consciousness before he hastened to the cage.

It seemed that Brasidas had noticed the quiet scuffle, as he’d scrambled to his knees, which was as far as the cage allowed him to sit up. As Alexios ran towards him, a grin spread over his face that he knew would be beaming and foolish. Brasidas just stared at him. Finally, he smiled.

“Took you long enough,” he said quietly, voice rough from disuse or illness, Alexios could not say.

“Give me some credit, I just heard you were here. We buried you in Sparta, do you know?”

“They told me, yes – taunted me. I wonder who went to the grave for me?” Brasidas glowered. “I suppose it’s too much to hope he was already dead and just happened to resemble me.” He looked Alexios up and down. “I want to tell you that you should not be here. You went into the lion’s cave, it won’t let you just scamper off.”

“I slew the Nemean Lion. They do not scare me anymore.”

With the sharp edge of his spear, Alexios worked the rope that tied the door to the cage shut. As soon as it swung open, he dragged Brasidas up into his embrace without as much as a thought. Brasidas embraced him, his left arm exerting only little pressure, but the other powerful around Alexios’ chest. Alexios pressed a kiss on his lips, which were cold and damp. It was only after he’d done so and felt Brasidas’ hand gently gripping his neck that he considered that Brasidas had reason to be furious with him for drawing him into his family feud, almost losing his life because Kassandra wanted to make a point to Alexios; that perhaps he wouldn’t do this if he knew she was now sitting at the family table in Sparta. But it seemed Brasidas favoured him still and the rest were concerns for later. Now all that counted was that he had snatched him from death, even if Brasidas might refuse to talk to him when the shock had abated and he knew the whole story.

“You grew a philosopher’s beard,” Alexios said, running his fingers through his tangled curls.

Brasidas snorted.

“I had little to do but sit and think. My shield arm isn’t what it used to be, either.”

Alexios took a step back to survey the damage. Kassandra’s spear had gone deep into his shoulder, but though the wound was ugly, new scars were already closing the skin and Brasidas could already move the arm again. It looked gruesome, but was by far not the worst that could have happened.

“Do you think you’ll get its use back?” Alexios asked. For his own sake, he cared little. Brasidas was sharp and kind, not a man who needed the battlefield as the only place where he could prove himself worthy. However, he knew himself well enough to say that he would not have been happy to lose use of a limb, as it would slow him down in a fight, and they were alike enough in that.

“I should say so, yes, if luck is on my side. I have had wounds like this heal before. However, I have to make it out of here alive for that to happen.” Brasidas glanced at the entrance to the tunnel that went further into the cave. “I suppose you have not fought your way here? I didn’t hear a struggle.”

“I climbed in throught an entrance your captors seem to have missed, but I doubt you can do it with only one arm,” Alexios said. “From here out, we might have to cut our way through.”

“I can’t say I will cry for these people,” Brasidas murmured, turning. His legs looked stiff, no doubt from sitting in the low cage for so long, but he strode on sure-footed. “That guard had a weapon on him.”

“Should you be fighting?”

Brasidas gave him a thin smile over his shoulder. “I will leave the front line to you, but surely you wouldn’t want me to stand bare-handed if someone comes my way.”

“Of course, you’ll definitely stand in the back only defending your life. That’s how I know Spartans,” Alexios answered, raising a brow.

With a quick grip, Brasidas pulled a short sword from the hip of the unconscious guard. “Well, I can’t leave _all_ the fun to you. I’m the one who had to sit here for weeks wondering if they would drag your dead body into the cave to show me.”

There was a smile on his face, but his eyes remained hard.

“I just wonder why they would go through the trouble of feigning your death if the goal was always to lure me in,” Alexios murmured. “Why not just take you?”

Brasidas gave a short, quiet laugh. “Because they are scared of you. Had they simply abducted me from the same battlefield you were on, you would have come looking. They would not have had time to set up their trap and you probably would have gone through their numbers easily. Besides, you had a Spartan army fully ready for battle at your back.” He shook his head. “It’s easier to set the game as you like it when you have the hostage securely stored away.”

“I would be flattered, but because of me, you had to sit in that cage for weeks,” Alexios murmured.

“And you came for me.” He squeezed Alexios’ shoulder. “Let us leave.”

Alexios wanted to say so much more – apologies, questions, declarations of the sort he knew he should not speak –, but instead he grabbed his daggers and nodded his head.

-

Brasidas could move just as quietly as him, but no one could have kept the oncoming fight silent. The very next cave down the tunnel had a good handful of soldiers stationed in it. Alexios was only happy that the walls of the cave were smooth and straight, with nowhere for archers or lookouts to perch. It allowed him to deliver a first deadly blow before anyone else had even had a chance to turn around.

By any account, fighting alongside Brasidas should not have worked. Alexios was a loner on the field, on his own quests even when he fought alongside troops, and always happy to be so. Brasidas had learned from early childhood to fight among the other boys of the _agoge_ , later as leader of an army, with shields designed to protect not only himself, but his brothers next to him.

And yet, as voices were raised and blades drawn, it was like an old dance. Their experience made it easy enough to compensate for the fact that Brasidas had to fight without his shield arm and was slower in his movements after his forced rest in the cage – they had both struggled through injuries and aches before. Brasidas held his ground, deflecting blows as Alexios sprang around him, using the distraction of men trying to attack what should be an easy target. When they were done, Brasidas stripped some leather armour from a tall man’s dead body, wincing as he strapped it over his half-healed wound.

While they had let none escape the clash, the noise had echoed through the cave, and Alexios could hear the trample of boots soon after they had silenced the first batch of soldiers. Brasidas grabbed him by the arm as he prepared to charge in.

“Stay back. Let them file in through the tunnel, it’s narrow.”

With a grunt, Alexios nodded his head. He had very rarely wanted to spill blood as much as he did now. Brandishing his daggers, he spread his feet to stand securely, waiting for the men to approach. As the first struggled through the tunnel, however, something bright and burning flew high over Alexios’ head and landed on the shoulder of one man, setting his tunic ablaze. Alexios saw a burning torch clatter to the ground as the man’s scream had heads turning. All instinct, Alexios jumped forward, putting his dagger through the leading soldier’s throat.

The battle was short and bloody and chaotic, a flurry of limbs and glinting weapons. Alexios tried his best to put himself between Brasidas and the attackers, earning a few nasty slashes for it, but keeping his head on his shoulders. When the din of the fight had stopped, he saw Brasidas leaning over a man, blood dripping down his face like rain. He wore such a blank expression that Alexios was not sure whether he was mourning him or contemplating to crush his nose with his heel. Eventually, Brasidas cut his already half-thorn throat, granting him quick death. When he rose, Alexios noticed his hands shaking.

“You’re not going weak on me, are you?” Alexios asked, trying to put humour in his voice when he found little.

“That cage did nothing for my stamina, I must admit.” Brasidas visibly pulled himself together, straightening his back, his knees, before he turned to stand at Alexios’ side. “But we can’t wait here. I just worry if this is all there should be to it. He cannot hope to have stopped you with two dozen soldiers scattered about a cave.”

“Well, he had a hostage, so had things gone according to plan, I would have come in where he could see me. All he really needed was one man with a knife at your throat,” Alexios answered.

“I hope that would not have stopped you,” Brasidas gave back.

Alexios said nothing, pushing forward. When Brasidas put his hand in the back of his neck and gave him a gentle shove, he shrugged his shoulders.

“You want me to lie to you?” he asked with a pale smile.

“You give the Cult too many leashes to hold you with.”

“It’s not honour to give up on people who need you. Besides, you are only here because of me.”

“It was my mistake to…”

Brasidas grew silent, frown growing deeper on his face. Just as Alexios was about to nudge him to go on, he heard it, too – a rhythmic pounding coming from up ahead. They glanced at each other before they walked onwards.

The last hollow of the cave opened onto the hillside. A thin sliver of moonlight fell in through the entrance. Making the rounds in the dim cavern was a bear of a man decked out in thick iron armour, ponderously moving his large form, a cudgel as big as a tree trunk resting on his shoulder. He never moved further than a few steps from the exit in his wanderings.

With Brasidas already out of breath, Alexios did not want to risk simply running past him, especially since he had no ideas if the other guards were still outside. Getting caught between that monster in their back and half a dozen men at their front could be a death sentence for both of them.

“You hide here. I will take care of this,” he murmured.

“I can help,” Brasidas whispered. “I doubt I have the strength left to fight, but I should manage to avoid him. He looks strong, but even he can’t use that giant thing as fast as a spear.” He glanced at Alexios. “You try to get him when he’s focused on me. It doesn’t matter how strong he is, a dagger to the throat will kill him all the same.”

Alexios opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Brasidas was Spartan, but at that more reasonable than most of them. The likes of Stentor would probably demand to be included in a fight even if they had half their limbs freshly hacked off, but Brasidas wasn’t trying to die tonight. It was still dangerous, yes, but they were so often in danger, weren’t they? Alexios just could not get the image of Kassandra’s spear going through Brasidas’ shoulder out of his head, but this could be a dangerous fight even for him if he had no help.

“I will try to get him from up on the wall.”

“Which one is better for you to climb?”

Alexios surveyed them briefly.

“Left.”

“I will lead him there.”

He gave Brasidas a quiet nod and took a step back into the shadows. There were still no edges for him to hide on, but the walls were uneven and easy to scale. Even attentive people often forgot to look up and the man wore a protruding helmet that meant he’d have to crane his head around to do it. It also protected all but a slim sliver of his neck, though. If Alexios wanted to do this clean, it’d have to be a swipe of his dagger as precise as a snake’s strike.

Below him, Brasidas stepped confidently out into the hall. The guardian halted and turned to face him. To Alexios, scrabbling up the wall as noiselessly as he could, he looked like an angry bull who had spotted a stranger walking onto the pasture. Brasidas brandished his sword.

“You didn’t think you could keep me in there forever, could you?!” he called out, his voice much steadier now, if a little tight to Alexios’ ears.

The cave was tall enough to let each noise reverberate, amplifying the sound of the giant’s feet coming towards Brasidas to thuds as loud as if the mountain had a heartbeat and though he did not answer, it was enough of a response. From the corner of his eye, Alexios saw Brasidas dance out of the way of a blow that came down on the ground like thunder. It was only Alexios’ imagination that made the walls shake, but he almost slipped nonetheless, tempted to forget the plan and stand between Brasidas and the beam of steel-trimmed wood that had hit the stone a few inches to his right.

With an effort, Alexios drew his focus back and made his way to where Brasidas and his opponent were headed. True to his word, Brasidas’ feints and pretend-escapes drew ever further left, and he led the way quickly and deftly without being obvious, even as the cudgel missed him by a hair’s breadth at times. Alexios positioned himself, let the muscles in his legs coil, waited for the guardian to turn. Then, he jumped.

His arm wrapped about the man’s neck, but his dagger, which he held in the other hand, glanced off his shoulder guard, aimed just a little too low as he’d been trying to avoid the helmet. With a grunt, the giant reached behind himself, but before he could grab Alexios, Brasidas had taken hold of his arm. He cursed and flung himself around. Brasidas, still clinging on, was bashed into the wall like a sack of hay. It was all the time Alexios needed to adjust the seat of his dagger and push it home.

Alexios jumped off the man before he fell, going down coughing and choking. He turned to Brasidas, who was rubbing the back of his head, but gave a lopsided smile when Alexios looked at him.

“There’s soldiers outside, but that should hopefully be the last of them. Are you alright?”

“I will be fine,” Brasidas said, pushing off the wall. “Come on.”

They stepped outside together, weapons drawn, but the rocky expanse before the cave entrance was empty now. Alexios frowned, looking up the mountain walls that framed it when Brasidas pointed forwards.

“At sea.”

Alexios narrowed his eyes at the water. In the moonlight, he saw a small boat slipping off into the waves. Whoever was responsible for this would no doubt be on it with the remaining guards.

“Poseidon take that damned coward!” he snapped, taking an instinctive step forward, as if he could catch up, then standing still. Even if he could get to his ship faster than he would with a weakened Brasidas in tow, he would never find such a small boat again in the night.

“I wondered where their commander was. We spoke only little, but he was not the type to don armour and fight with his men,” Brasidas gave back in a tone that betrayed what he thought of such leaders. “It doesn’t matter now. You did what you could and I am alive thanks to you.”

Unhappily, Alexios turned away from the sea and looked at Brasidas again. He fixed him with his gaze until Alexios finally made himself nod in grudging agreement.

They made their way out of the small canyon into the light forest that studded the hillside. Brasidas trailed after him, but stopped at a brook Alexios had crossed with a jump to wash his hands and his face. Alexios hung back and followed his example. Sometimes, he forgot about the blood clinging to him until he walked into some village and found people staring; he was so used to it now.

After Brasidas had dropped two handfuls of water over his head, he sat down by the side of the brook and stuck his naked feet into the cool rush of water.

“Are you in a hurry?” Brasidas asked Alexios after a moment of quiet. “Or can we rest a little? I admit my head is spinning.”

“I’d get to the ship sooner rather than later. Who knows if your captor left someone on the island? But we don’t have to run.”

He fell down onto the soft ground next to him. Looking closer at Brasidas by the light of the full moon, he saw his skin was covered in dirt; Alexios doubted they had allowed him out of the cage to bathe, so it was no wonder he was so eager to wash up a bit. Knowing that Brasidas had lived there like some animal only reignited his anger that he’d let the leader get away. Perhaps he should have gone through the front, cut them up head to tail, but then Brasidas could have been in danger…

A finger nudged his chin. Brasidas urged him to look over with a gentle but decisive touch.

“We will find him,” he said.

“Did the Cult teach you to read minds?”

Brasidas chuckled. “I don’t need such blessings to guess your thoughts. Come now, I am very happy to have survived. Can you find a little joy in that?”

It was clearly a taunt to pull him from the brink, but Alexios could only stare back at him in silence, wondering what would come out of his mouth if he tried to answer. The weeks he had spent thinking Brasidas dead threatened to topple and collapse on him right there.

Thankfully, Brasidas regarded him for a moment, then kissed him, sparing him the embarrassment. Alexios pulled him into his arms as tightly as he dared, careful not to pressure the wound. He knew he had to bring Brasidas back – there were a lot of people who missed him, and most had a better claim on his time and attention than a man who had been too stupid to say what he felt when it mattered. However, as Brasidas looked at him, he realised maybe he had never needed to. He had always suspected Brasidas had the better of him where wits were concerned and he might have realised long before Alexios did what this was. Still, Alexios needed to say all lest the chance was taken from him again.

“There is so much I have to tell you,” Alexios said.

“You will on the way home,” Brasidas said gently.

Alexios held his breath for a moment, fingers still in the curls of Brasidas’ hair. There was one thing that could not wait even that long.

“Kassandra is in Sparta,” he rushed. “Willingly. She came back to us.”

If anything could separate them now but death, it was this. Brasidas looked at him for a long moment and Alexios almost squirmed in the silence.

“Well, you can tell me about that on the ship, too,” Brasidas said, finally, and leaned his forehead against Alexios’.

Alexios breathed in and smiled.

“Alright,” he said, sitting back and taking Brasidas’ hand. “Let’s return to Sparta before it collapses without you.”


End file.
